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So far, Speaker Mike Johnson has proven remarkably adept at keeping his raucous tribe of rebels from throwing the House into chaos, a skill that last week once again thwarted efforts by a group of Republican firebrands to undermine the will of President Donald Trump. But the Speaker’s talent of necessity may find a breaking point as soon as the end of this month.
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Last Tuesday, Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky introduced a measure that would force the full House to vote on a bill requiring the Department of Justice to release all it knows related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and those who have accused him of sexual abuse. A day later, Epstein’s alleged victims stood on the steps of the Capitol to draw more attention to Massie’s discharge petition. It worked. The rally was the talk of Washington, as woman after woman spoke graphically about where their interactions with Epstein led, upping the ante on the House to move.
“I ask you, President Trump and members of Congress: why do we continue to cover up sexual abuse and assault? Who are we covering for?” accuser Chauntae Davies said. “Let the public know the truth. We cannot heal without justice. We cannot protect the future if we refuse to confront the past.”
Massie’s petition needs 218 signatures to force a vote. So far, only four Republicans—Massie, along with Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina—have joined the coalition. It is widely assumed all 212 Democrats will join, putting the total at 216—just two short. There are four vacancies in the House and three are all-but-certain to break in Democrats’ favor. If Democrats can hold the late Rep. Gerry Connolly’s district in Virginia and the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s district in Arizona, that’s the ballgame. Both special elections are this month. A third reliably Blue district, held until recently by the late Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas, is up for a vote in November.
Massie has earned a reputation as a House malcontent. Two years ago, he stood alone in opposing a resolution condemning anti-Semitism. In January, he was the only Republican to vote against retaining Johnson as Speaker. Discharge petitions exist as long as its sponsor keeps it on the docket, meaning this may end up being a test of wills between Massie and a Speaker he did not vote for.
While the release-the-files brigade may have the momentum, this remains Trump’s Washington, and the paths to blocking a bill he doesn’t support are vast. Even if the measure advances out of the House, the Senate remains a massive roadblock, one where Majority Leader John Thune holds great sway. Most bills still require 60 votes to creep forward, and there are no signs of that level of Senate support for so clearly defying Trump. And, of course, there’s no way Trump would bend and sign Massie’s bill into law, meaning this whole thing is a legislative folly.
Yet that the measure remains a live ball is a sign that Trumpism is facing a fraught moment.
From the campaign trail to the West Wing, Trump fed the churn of innuendo that a global cabal was behind an Epstein-orchestrated sex ring. Once he was back in power, Trump lost control of the narrative, and his every effort to tamp it down has had the opposite effect. There’s just too much sizzle here: playboy billionaires, sex, and defenseless kids.
Earlier this summer, Johnson sent his troops home early for recess to dodge a dicey vote on an Epstein measure, buying him time he had hoped would let this die down. The boil proved durable. Last week, Johnson pushed forward a token measure to instruct the House oversight panel to keep up its work on its Epstein investigation. It was essentially a paper-over, but it worked for now. (On Friday, Johnson claimed Trump was an FBI informant in the Epstein case, before walking that back.)
It’s impossible to ignore how much effort GOP leaders have spent working to slow all this down. It’s even more striking when one considers what else is on the chamber’s agenda—don’t forget, the government runs out of money at the end of the month.
For the moment, Trump seems to have gotten his way and Johnson cleared the deck. The brief spasm, though, betrays an unease in the incredibly slim majority Johnson controls and the volatility in his base. And there’s no way to know if this bill is dead or a zombie. Fanatics have been known to reanimate causes of all stripes.
But in a chamber where so much revenge can be meted out by a Speaker, being the member to push something over to the edge can be career-ending. Two initial votes against Johnson’s Speakership flipped under intense lobbying from the White House. Massie did not cave and lost his gig on the powerful Rules Committee, although he cast it as a voluntary exit. Johnson has made clear he wants none of this on his watch.
Trump has cast this rebellion as unacceptable. If Johnson were to let this fester much longer, Trump might well have his hide.
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